1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of information handling systems. More specifically, but with limitation, the disclosure relates to a protocol abstraction layer.
2. Background Information
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is an information handling system (IHS). An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for such systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As the number of communication standards and different types of devices in a network of IHSs continue to proliferate, several management problems may arise. There may be multiple methods of communicating with a remotely managed device, including the use of multiple agents or providers to transmit data. Each of the agents or providers may support one or more communication protocols, such as simple network management protocol (SNMP), windows management instrumentation-common information model (WMI-CIM), web services for management (WS-MAN), common information model-extensible markup language (CIM-XML), and other, more proprietary structured protocols.
In order to properly manage a network, an administrator may require significant knowledge of each of the variety protocols. Further, several additional problems may arise as a result of the complexity of the network. For example, within different generations of devices, one agent/provider may be preferred over another agent/provider. Based on the version or availability of protocols utilized by the agents/providers, the preference may also change. In some situations, several agents/providers on one device may provide the same data utilizing the same or different protocol or perhaps varying details of the data over different protocols, further complicating the process and potentially increasing network bandwidth usage. Due to network or other restrictions imposed by the administrator, one protocol may be restricted over another protocol, but the agent/provider may support data retrieval over either protocol. Therefore, it is possible that the best known method may not be used to retrieve the data needed. It is apparent from the issues that may arise that an administrator may require significant knowledge of a network and the protocols utilized to properly and efficiently manage resources.
Thus, a need exists for methods and media for providing an abstract interface utilizing a layered architecture that allows applications to retrieve data from remote devices utilizing various communication protocols. Based on a predetermined set of rules, a management console may connect to a preferred agent/provider utilizing a preferred protocol, therefore reducing the burden on an administrator to make such determinations.